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“You okay?” Anna asks, barely even thinking of it, still looking at her book. It’s one of the things she does, that she has done since she shoved Mabel against a wall all that time ago and kissed her and refused to let go of her at any point afterward. Just a check-in. Mabel rarely thinks of it anymore, almost never hesitates before replying yes, but--
“I don’t really know,” says Mabel, and Anna closes her book immediately, looking at her with her head tilted.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Mabel shrugs and leans onto Anna’s shoulder, waiting until Anna wraps her arm around her stomach to actually let herself relax. Anna rubs circles into Mabel’s arm, her other hand running through Mabel’s hair.
“I can literally feel your muscles untensing,” says Anna, pulling her into a slightly more comfortable position, “which I assume is not a particularly good sign for how you’re actually feeling.”
“I feel better now,” says Mabel, petulant. “I just— nevermind.”
“If you’re cutting yourself off because you think you’re whining by talking about how you’re doing, I’m going to divorce you.”
“No, you're not.”
“No, I’m not,” Anna replies easily, grinning. “But seriously. Talk to me.”
“I’m thinking about boarding school,” Mabel says after a few moments, huddling just a bit closer to Anna. The rate at which Anna is running her hand through Mabel's hair gets a bit faster, like she’s trying to keep her calmed down. It helps, a little. “They used to— we all used to share, all forty of us in this one single dorm. We’d all have to sleep in groups. And I— we. There was. There were girls who didn’t know about everything going on, and those of us who did wouldn’t ever talk about it. The subjects— there were maybe eight of us— we’d all just say we fell or we got sick.”
Anna hums like she’s listening.
“And I miss them— I miss being young and I hate— I hate her, Anna. I hate what Aurora Silver did— to me, to Ekaterina, to— to the boy with the gun, and it—” and here Mabel pauses, head ticking violently against Anna’s ribcage, uncontrollable movement that happens to her when her brain goes too fast to manage.
“‘S okay,” Anna says quietly. “You’re safe.”
“I know,” says Mabel, her voice cracking on the last word and then shifting back into a sort of whirring hum. “I know. I know.”
“Make sure you’re breathing,” says Anna patiently. She presses a kiss onto Mabel’s forehead.
“I know. I know.”
“You don’t have to talk if you can’t.”
Mabel hums again, sitting up slightly so she can wrap her arms around Anna’s waist, her face against Anna’s collarbone.
“Better?” asks Anna.
“Better.”
“Better.” Anna mimics, grinning.
“Better.”
“Better.”
“Better.”
“We can’t go back and forth on this forever, babe.”
Mabel blushes, then smiles.
“Did talking about it help?”
Mabel nods decisively. “Thank you for listening.”
“Of course,” says Anna. “Always.”